Apple finally sues unlicensed Macintosh cloner Psystar

Psystar surprised the industry in April by announcing an extremely cheap but …

Apple's adventures with Mac clones had at best, mixed results, and Steve Jobs quickly ended the program in 1997 after his return as CEO. While a company named Psystar ignored that memo when it decided to release its own unofficial Mac clones earlier this year, there's no way it's going to miss Apple's latest memo, which came in the form of a just-uncovered lawsuit filed earlier this month.

This past April, Psystar made instant waves by announcing a bargain-basement Mac clone for $399 that could run Leopard, the latest version of Apple's Mac OS X. Psystar's PC is an upgradeable tower with a respectable amount of features which, at face value, starts $200 lower than Apple's cheapest—and highly unconfigurable—Mac mini at $599. Despite drawbacks like incompatibility with some Apple software updates, a flood of orders brought the company's site down for days at a time.

While Apple's EULA forbids running Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, Ars received a "no comment" from Psystar in April about the issue, and the company's clones eventually began shipping. Even Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak who is no longer with the company said that he "may get one." Shipments have reportedly remained slow and steady since the initial storm that met the clones' launch. Meanwhile, Apple remained tight-lipped about the issue—until now.

A ZDNet reader tipped the site to the fact that Apple has finally filed suit against Psystar in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit accuses Psystar of violating Apples licenses and trademarks, as well as copyright infringement. While the lawsuit comes as no surprise, the fact that Apple waited to file suit until July 3 to sue Psystar is. Strangely enough, a copy of the complaint is not yet available on PACER, although there's no indication that it's under seal.

Reached by phone, Psystar declined to comment to Ars, and attempts to reach the company's CEO have been unsuccessful. Apple has also yet to respond to our requests for comment on the lawsuit. Psystar has not filed its response to Apple's complaint. According to court documents seen by Ars, initial filings are due in October, with a case management conference scheduled for October 22.